![Among the records that Donald Trump's lawyers tried to shield from Jan. 6 investigators are a draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and a document titled "Remarks on National Healing." POLITICO has reviewed both documents. The text of the draft executive order is published here for the first time. It's not clear who wrote either document. But the draft executive order is dated Dec. 16, 2020, and is consistent with proposals that lawyer Sidney Powell made to the then-president. On Dec. 18, 2020, Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump administration lawyer Emily Newman, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne met with Trump in the Oval Office. In that meeting, Powell urged Trump to seize voting machines and to appointher as a special counsel to investigate the election, according to Axios. The order empowers the defense secretary to "seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under" a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records. [...] Additionally, the draft order would have given the defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election. That suggests it could have been a gambit to keep Trump in power until at least mid-February of 2021. But the draft executive order also cites two classified documents: National Security Presidential Memoranda 13 and 21. The existence of the first of those memoranda is publicly known, but the existence of the second has not been previously reported. NSPM 13 governs the Pentagon's offensive cyber operations. According to a person with knowledge of the memoranda, 21 makes small adjustments to 13, and the two documents are viewed within the executive branch as a pair. The fact that the draft executive order's author knew about the existence of Memorandum 21 suggests that they had access to information about sensitive government secrets, the person told POLITICO.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/295/516/0ba "\"National Healing\"")
"National Healing"
Uploaded by KZN02 Jan 21, 2022 at 10:29PM EST
Origin Entry: January 6th, 2021, Storming of the United States Capitol
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Uploaded by KZN02 Jan 21, 2022 at 10:29PM EST
Origin Entry: January 6th, 2021, Storming of the United States Capitol
File type: png
Resolution: (372px x 348px)
File size: 67.9 KB
![Cite as: 595 U. S. (2022) 1 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 21A272 DONALD J. TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES v. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL, ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY OF MANDATE AND INJUNCTION PENDING REVIEW [January 19, 2022] The application for stay of mandate and injunction pend- ing review presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him re- ferred to the Court is denied. The questions whether and in what circumstances a former President may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office, in the face of a determination by the incumbent President to waive the privilege, are unprece- dented and raise serious and substantial concerns. The Court of Appeals, however, had no occasion to decide these questions because it analyzed and rejected President Trump's privilege claims "under any of the tests [he] advo- cated," Trump v. Thompson, 20 F. 4th 10, 33 (CADC 2021), without regard to his status as a former President, id., at 40–46. Because the Court of Appeals concluded that Presi- dent Trump's claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court's decision. Id., at 33 (noting no “need [to] conclusively resolve whether and to what ex- tent a court," at a former President's behest, may "second guess the sitting President's" decision to release privileged](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/294/172/241 "SCOTUS Rules Against Blocking Release of Trump's Records")
